Earth Sciences in the News

The Department of Earth Sciences stands at the forefront of pressing global issues, such as climate change, resource management and environmental protection. Learn more about how our expert faculty and fearless students conduct research that impacts the world around us. 

  • In ancient boulders, new clues about the story of human migration to the Americas
    2/6/25
    05/30/2018: When and how did the first people come to the Americas? The conventional story says that the earliest settlers came via Siberia, crossing the now-defunct Bering land bridge on foot and trekking through Canada when an ice-free corridor opened up between massive ice sheets toward the end of the last ice age.
  • Study probes history of famed lake effect snow
    2/6/25
    01/22/2018: Lake effect snowfall is one of nature’s greatest snow machines: It happens when cold winds flow over warmer water, giving rise to intense bands of precipitation that can dump several feet of snow on a single location in hours or days. A new UB study aims to learn more about this phenomenon, which has sired some of the Great Lakes region’s most epic weather events — including a 2014 storm that buried parts of Western New York under 7 feet of snow.
  • College Matters: On the Rocks
    2/6/25
    01/2018
  • Scientists get early look at hurricane damage to Caribbean coral reefs
    2/6/25
    12/26/2017: Coral reefs off St. John, part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, suffered severe injury during the storms, say scientists from the University at Buffalo and California State University, Northridge who traveled there in late November to assess the damage — the first step in understanding the reefs’ recovery.
  • Volcanoes past behavior key to predicting eruptions
    2/6/25
    11/29/2017: Mount Agung in Bali has been thrusting ash thousands of feet into the sky for almost two weeks. Lava is burbling at the volcano’s peak. Indonesian authorities have ordered evacuations around Agung, while tourists are stranded at the closed airport. The volcano’s flanks are bulging from magma trying to push its way out, and earthquake frequency has been increasing. Heat from the magma has melted snow and ice at Agung’s summit, causing volcanic mudflows called lahars. It’s looking like an eruption is imminent. But how do volcanologists know for sure what’s to come?